AUDIOCODES CASE STUDY
Grupo Familia Case Study
Reliable voice connectivity for a multinational Microsoft Skype for
Business deployment
Customer: Grupo Familia
Website: www.grupofamilia.com.co
Location: Colombia
Industry: Manufacturing
Customer Profile:
Grupo Familia is a Colombian consumer
goods company and pulp and paper
manufacturer.
Challenges:
• Ensuring connectivity between Microsoft
UC and existing communications
platforms
• Reliable interconnectivity with local PSTN
• Survivability at remote branch offices
Solutions:
• Mediant 1000 SBC/media gateway
• Mediant 1000 Survivable Branch
Appliance
• MediaPack analog gateways
Colombia-based Grupo Familia required a reliable and flexible solution to provide
voice connectivity for its new Microsoft unified communications deployment. Using
AudioCodes media gateways, it was able to deliver seamless voice internal and external
calling with multiple levels of resiliency to help improve its employees’ communications
experience and increase productivity.
Background
Grupo Familia (www.grupofamilia.com.co) is a Colombian consumer goods company
and pulp and paper manufacturer with headquarters in Medellín. With Swedish
investment from Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget, Grupo Familia is a leader in the design,
innovation, production and distribution of personal care products. The company has
seven manufacturing facilities in four countries, and its products are marketed in more
than 20 nations around the globe.
Grupo Familia was assisted in this project by Intergrupo (www.intergrupo.com), one of
Colombia’s leading IT Consulting Service Providers. Intergrupo is an AudioCodes Gold
Partner.
Challenges
Benefits:
• Field-proven, reliable platforms, fully
certified by Microsoft
• Seamless connectivity thanks
to extensive SIP and TDM
interoperability
• Ability to integrate analog devices
(e.g. fax) into UC environment
• Single hardware platform fulfils
multiple roles
• Simplified ordering, training and
management
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With its business growing and presence expanding to different countries, Grupo Familia
realized that its legacy communications platform was not sufficient for the needs of
its employees. What was needed was a state-of-the-art unified communications (UC)
platform that would ensure seamless communications between employees in all of its
offices. Functionality such as online collaboration, presence monitoring and instant
messaging were necessary to help the company boost its productivity and increase
efficiency of its internal and external communications.
With the help of local system integrator Intergrupo, Grupo Familia decided to
deploy Microsoft Skype for Business (formerly Lync) as its company-wide unified
communications solution. Skype for Business/Lync ticked all the boxes as far as
functionality and ease of use was concerned. It was very well received by employees
in all the company’s departments and its positive effects could be felt throughout the
organization.
Grupo Familia deployed Mediant
1000 devices at its head office
in Colombia and at remote sites
in Colombia and abroad. At all
sites, E1 interfaces enabled direct
connectivity with the local PSTN
One area which required particular attention was connecting the new
platform to existing communications systems and networks. Despite the
move to Microsoft UC, Grupo Familia still needed to maintain in its network
a number of legacy devices, such as analog phones, fax machines and a
RightFax fax server platform. These all needed to be able to communicate
seamlessly with the new platform. In addition, the company needed the UC
solution to be able to deliver smooth interconnectivity with the local PSTN
for inbound and outbound voice calls.
operators.
Another challenge that required a solution was ensuring branch survivability
in cases where the connection with Grupo Familia’s central servers was
lost. Employees at Grupo Familia’s remote offices needed to have voice
calling available in such circumstances.
“AudioCodes’
Mediant
media
gateways are fully certified by
Microsoft,
provide
seamless
interoperability with the PSTN and
other voice systems and are simple
to manage and maintain.”
Solution
Juan Fernando Prado Garcia,
Director of UC Operations at Intergrupo
Grupo Familia tested a variety of vendors’ solution for their voice
connectivity needs. In conjunction with Intergrupo, the company selected
AudioCodes as its vendor of choice since AudioCodes’ solutions met all of
the company’s requirements.
“AudioCodes was an obvious choice of vendor for Grupo Familia’s Microsoft
UC environment,” explained Juan Fernando Prado Garcia, Director of UC
Operations at Intergrupo. “Its Mediant media gateways are fully certified
by Microsoft, provide seamless interoperability with the PSTN and other
voice systems and are simple to manage and maintain.”
Grupo Familia deployed Mediant 1000 devices at its head office in Colombia
and at remote sites in Colombia and abroad. At all sites, E1 interfaces
enabled direct connectivity with the local PSTN operators. In addition, at
the remote sites the Mediant 1000 was deployed as a Survivable Branch
Appliance (SBA) to ensure internal and external communications could
continue even if the connection to the central servers was lost. The Mediant
1000 supports dual power supplies which can be replaced in the field, thus
adding another level of resiliency to the solution.
Grupo Familia also deployed AudioCodes MediaPack analog gateways
where support for legacy analog phones and fax machines was required.
Since all of AudioCodes’ gateway platforms are based on the same
underlying voice processing technology, full interoperability between all
elements of the solution could be guaranteed.
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AudioCodes Ltd.
Results
After a limited proof of concept met with resounding success, Grupo
Familia began to roll out the new UC solution to its other offices in
Colombia and abroad. The company now benefits from full unified
communications, complete with comprehensive enterprise voice
capabilities.
Commenting on the successful deployment of AudioCodes’ solution in
Grupo Familia’s network, Juan Esteban Jaramillo Jiménez, IT Manager
at Grupo Familia said, “A major advantage of deploying the AudioCodes
Mediant 1000 was that we were able to standardize on a single platform
that can be utilized in a variety of scenarios. Having one robust hardware
platform that both provides seamless connectivity with the PSTN and
can be deployed as an SBA simplifies network management and reduces
The Mediant 1000 supports dual
our training and support requirements.”
power supplies which can be replaced
in the field, thus adding another level
of resiliency to the solution.
“A major advantage of deploying the
AudioCodes Mediant 1000 was that
we were able to standardize on a
single platform that can be utilized in
a variety of scenarios.”
Juan Esteban Jaramillo Jiménez,
IT Manager at Grupo Familia
International Headquarters
1 Hayarden Street
Airport City, Lod, 7019900, Israel
Tel: +972-3-976-4000
Fax: +972-3-976-4040
AudioCodes Inc. USA
27 World’s Fair Drive, Somerset,
NJ 08873
Tel: +1-732-469-0880
Fax: +1-732-469-2298
www.audiocodes.com/info
www.audiocodes.com
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